De LA Soul

Days 99-100

I claimed my bag (for Spain) and sat outside the terminal in weather that I wanted to be more hospitable in the shade. I garnered solicitation from a gentleman and lady to help them with some charity and all I could think about was drinking a beer. This is a wonderful society. I sported a plastic bag with half a chopped beef sandwich from Saltlick Barbeque in the Austin airport as I trounced up and down the terminal's exterior cement in hopes that I could find a cheap ride to Santa Monica, only 10-13 miles up the street, a short ride by Los Angeles standards. I planned to meet Mr. Shepard for drinks over there since I intended to sleep on his living room furniture. I haggled with the Super Shuttle guy on time of departure, distance, and cost, and proceeded to speak with cab drivers who quoted me at $40 to go up the street. Damn, son! I fretted for my wallet and put the 5 hours old sandwich in my gullet, and then the gentleman who solicited my earlier came over to rest and we had a little chat. I revealed that I was eating imported barbecue and he flashed a friendly jealousy. We talked about cabs and shuttles and he gave me the peace of mind about the workings of LA cabs and shuttles I needed to just eat the $30 like a sandwich.

I arrived in Santa Monica and apparently, you're supposed to inform your driver that you'll be using debit or credit before you even take the ride, and so pulling my debit card out, the guy complained and made a big deal about it and some stranger was about to pay cash for my ride, I guess to give me the ultimate guilt trip about not knowing the rules of how to take an expensive cab ride in LA. I shooed him away and we worked the debit out, of course, because who doesn't take debit these days? Even I take debit!

Shep and I took the usual "occasionally I'm in town and we can catch up" drinks, and it got a little sloppy. We ended up at a bar called Maeve's Residuals, a purported Red Sox bar in the Valley where there are 24 oz cans of PBR, the likes of which I hadn't seen served in an establishment since Savannah, GA, a place where "Get Crushingly Drunk" is one of two options listed under the "Activities" section of the "Welcome to Historic Savannah" pamphlet, the other being "Wake Up Smelling Like Cigarette Smoke". They even invented a whole new adverb in crushingly to describe what kind of drunk is required of you there. And so, in LA, it is once again an option, not because there i nothing to do, but because it is the only way to gain access to your feelings, since I imagine they've been castrated of the ability to interact with others.

Allow me to elaborate, because as much fun as I had with Adam, we do always have a good time, the experience I had in LA was one that seemed to warn me more than ever before of what I planned to do here. It is my final destination, you know. Beyond your friends, the interactions are stunningly superficial, in a way where you can't be upset that you went through the decorum of being polite, whether your effort is genuine or not, but you can smell the rat of their falsity in polite response as you watch them go through the details of a "You're welcome" or holding a door open for you, or politely listening to whatever you have to say, only to wait for a window to interject the non-stop stream of bullshit they are about to vomit into the aural space around you. Great, you've found work as a stunt actor, that doesn't make you a hero, and it sure isn't making you a friend, I thought we were going to trade stories and joke around, but instead you wanted to talk as much as possible to strongarm me out of an unassuming conversation so you could aggressively hit on this girl who is in some non-sensical way, out of your league. There's friendly, and fake friendly, and the possibility exists for you to get one or the other at any time, and the inconsistency is what disappoints. In Boston, I can deal with every person being unwilling to smile back at my stupid grinning mug, since every person is suffering the personality disorder of the northeast. Even so, your friends are all willing participants, and the sincerity of people is a hard bottom line that I can appreciate. Flakes are everywhere, so let's except these circumstances momentarily as I say that in South Florida, people are slow and deliberate and Miami Beach is cold but direct, in a New york City kind of way with a slower pace. In Austin, and even other parts of Texas, warmth is prevalent, truth is regarded, openness and trust between people is preferred, and it's been there that I have felt most justly dealt with in everyday person to person interactions, on all levels. Whew.

I did get the chance to meet up with Debi, who I met in New Orleans, saw and hung out with in Austin, and now she lives in LA. We had drinks at Maeve's residuals since I'm basically right there, watch the Red Sox, and started talking about how I'll arrive in August and it might be a good idea to get an apartment together. I will need roommates and the situation seems ideal, but I trepidatiously enter this verbal agreement since I don't know what I'll be doing for work, or how much capital I'll be starting with. The good news is, I always have places to retreat to, and so, fearlessly into the future, knowing the past trails you until you sever yourself from it. We grab some In 'N Out, and she puts me at Jennie's place to congregate with the intention of seeing the Dodgers first night game of the season, and I do still love me some Manny Ramirez, what a clown.

So my frustration with LA and the fear of dealing with it all is getting to me, and I don't blame myself, though you certainly can choose and comment whether I should or not, I'll entertain all manner of discussions on the subject. This said, I went to the Dodgers game with my best girl-friend in California, Jennie and her husband Orrin and Jenn's sister Lisa. Jennie told me once that Lisa was in Boston and I regretfully had to work and couldn't find the time to meet up with her. In the early post game, I pedaled down Ipswitch to return to Fenway, and I saw two girls walking East. I stopped of course, interested in avoiding the lineups down by the park and leaned on these girls for a ride pretty damned hard. Finally I told them to "just get in," and they did. I began to take them down to Copley Square, and one of the girls on the back says, "My sister's friend does this."
"Oh yeah? What's his name, I probably know him," I reply, since I have seen at that point five seasons worth of drivers.
"Dan," she says.
I turned around and looked at her as the tricycle continued forward. "I'm Dan."
"Jenn's my sister," she said, trying the key in the lock.
Unlocked, "Lisa?"
"Oh my God!"

I randomly gave her sister a pedicab ride. And so, facebook friends thenceforward, we chatted for months until I finally saw her again for the Dodger game. It was a boring game, despite it's back and forth nature, and I have a hard time getting down with fans of other allegiances, I suppose the same way Muslims and Jews don't get along, without rationale for a disagreement, a false construct meant to absorb money or create power being the divide between both of us. I didn't like the Dodgers fans being so vehement in their desire to call the Diamondbacks/D-backs, the D-Bags. recently I discovered a distaste for LA Lakers fans as well. I can't believe anyone would be a fan of the Angels or the Tampa Bay Rays. Let's not get started on the Yankees and their organization. So after a lengthy seven innings, we did all take a trip down to the Short Stop, a dim tavern where I planned to have a few other friends come by and catch me there while I had my hot minute in LA. I caught longtime buddy Laurence, met his girlfriend, and sat down for a chat with old high school friend Dave, who I really hadn't spoken with since my freshman year of college. I had a bad taste in my mouth for how things went in high school, and so distanced myself from most of the people I associated with the period, but Facebook reunites people, people. I've spoken with a lot of folks that have gone completely out of memory. That site is like a pipecleaner for the folds of your friend memory, brush off the residue, they are still alive, and you might be interested to know... Dave and I caught up on all the people we used to know, the good and the sad, the surprises, the most expected failures, a check in on ourselves as well. I met his friends, and they struck me as very LA, but more genuinely friendly since a connection bound us to the same table. I was very happy Dave and I sat down together.

Jennie, Orrin, and Lisa left, so I brought my luggage into the bar, then back out to take a short cab to Koreatown and party for a bit with Mr. Kyle Graham. If there is any solid reason for me to move to LA, it is to work with this animal. He's so quick and sharp, studies improv, has begun submerging himself in work, and I think we'll be excellent mutual motivators to succeed. We always played well off of each other, and the potential for raw eruptions of laughter are always available when we begin a conversational structure. We met, embraced, and I dropped my stuff at his place before we ducked in through the kitchen entrance to a closed pub that had about 15 folks partying. Here lied the pocket of genuine people I needed to see to assuage my fears about being in the driving and traffic capital of the world. One of Kyle's friends, a fellow Irish identifier, refused to let me take it easy, a peer pressure I did enjoy as whiskey flowed down the hatch to excess, despite the fact that I had to catch a Super Shuttle to the airport the next morning between 8:25am and 8:35am, as stated by the website. We burned it late, and I didn't fight too hard since I only really had to awaken, exit, and sit down in different places for hours on end. A voiceover job cookie for a videogame got dangled in front of me to tempt me more into the relocation, stirring the old sauce about getting paid to do what I like to do again, awakening the very idea for the trip again. It swirls around again, and like a bundle of cables, it carries the power with all the other desires of different colors powering the body to do what it wants. Which one is the ground?

I sat with my eyes half opened and rolled up in the Super Shuttle, teetering between other shuttle customers, probably reeking of the Powers whiskey, the stuff that replaced my blood when I stumbled through Ireland, drank water at the airport Dunkin' Donuts, ate greasy hash browns, and took my window seat on my Virgin America airbus, only to lean against the view of the sky and sleep for 75% of that flight. Back to Boston, again. 80's night tonight. Check out my mouth, Doc, how's it doin? Good? Great, I'm just gonna go pick up $5,500 real quick and go back to Texas. 20 Red Sox games in 27 days, and a visit home in the middle. Jeremy said it best when he said, "He's not making a clean break." It's true, the roots are still there, the draw is there, but the lust for more is the cloud that follows me around these days, and it's about to precipitate.

Statistics:

$66 on transportation services
$10 for LA dodgers ticket
75 minutes or so that this guy just kept fucking talking about himself
215 minutes of sleep before my flight
9 years since I saw Dave Ross
13 innings of baseball, 6 of which we skipped out on. The Dodgers lost anyway.
5.5 hours from LA to Boston.

Drinks from...

Day 100

569 Black and Tan (with Harp) @Maeve's Residuals
570 Black and Tan (with Smithwicks)
571 Black and Tan (Smithwicks)
572 Sierra Nevada
573 Chimay White @Short Stop
574 Chimay White
575 PBR
576 Natural Ice @"Speakeasy"
577 Shiner Bock!! In Cali!!
578 Shot of Powers
579 Shot of Powers
580 Miller Genuine Draft
581 Miller Genuine Draft
582 Shot of Powers

Next: The couchsurfing marathon pedicab project begins, and the maintenance of all things Texas grows tenuous...